I wanted to take a second to introduce 4 Wheel to Heal on the Military Jeepers forum.

My name is J.P. (John Purser) and I am one of the 4 military members who Co-Founded this Non-Profit Organization. We are located in MD and VA and are a small growing organization. We initially started as 4 Wheel Enthusiasts whose goal if and when we got big enough was to give back to Wounded Veterans. We looked at going in a couple of different directions with this cause and recently decided to start our own Organization.

4 Wheel to Heal is dedicated to taking Wounded Warriors / Veterans from all branches of service to off-roading events. These events involve four wheeling, rock crawling, mud bogging, and camping. Our mission is to boost moral for these veterans and give them an experience they will never forget.

We also work closely with Operation Ward 57 a Non-Profit Org dedicated to helping inpatient Warriors with their recovery. If you are unfamiliar with Op Ward 57 I would highly suggest checking them out!

With 4 Wheel to Heal we have come up with T-Shirts and stickers. The proceeds from our Merchandise go to our events for Wounded Veterans We also donate 10% of our merchandise sales to Operation Ward 57.

We just launched our website on February 15th and are now able to take donations!

This thread will tell the story of 4 Wheel to Heal and follow us along through everything we have worked in and accomplished! Enjoy!

boarderofsnow

03-04-2012 03:52 PM

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Through an email contact with one of the Officers we work with we were introduced to Brittney Hamilton the Executive Director of Operation Ward 57. She mentioned an event coming up at Walter Reeds Army Medical Center and invited us to attend.

July 07, 2011

We met Brittney and all of the other Operation Ward 57 Volunteers (Laura Boone & Katie Fairman. We also met the head civilian of Ward 57 & 58 Caleb (Great guy). Caleb got us into contact with a representative for USO for future events. We toured the Wards and took food to Warriors. We were able to meet several amputees and they were really impressed seeing us and hearing about our cause. We then helped with the farewell dinner and helped clean up. We finished with pictures in front of the Ward 57 banner which had been signed by everyone visiting the ward and the wounded veterans. That banner will be place in the Army Musuem. We also built a Community Page for 4 Wheel to Heal on FaceBook.

From here we went and developed our first concept for T-Shirts and Stickers.

We call the first T-Shirt design "The Superman" and the sticker "Sidewall"

boarderofsnow

03-04-2012 04:16 PM

Our First Event as 4 Wheel to Heal

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PA All Breeds Jeep Show - July 16th, 17th, 2011

Rick Bear of PA Jeeps was gracious enough to donate a Vender / Swap meet spot for 4 Wheel to Heal. He is a veteran himself and was really impressed with the cause. So this gave us a spot at the All Breeds Jeep Show of 10 x 40ft to sell Parts and 4w2h merchandise. This was a success on all fronts.

1 - We got our name out there!

2 - We raised $658 in T-Shirts and Sticker sales!

3 - We made contacts like Larry McRae (Owner) from Poison Spyder who immediately asked to let him know what we needed in the future for our events!

4 - Continued to grow our relationship with PA Jeep Club and Big Dogs Offroad

5 - Was told by Rick Bear the President of PA Jeep Club that we will have a free vender spot in the future for our cause!

We submitted a $65 donation to Op Ward 57 in the next week.

boarderofsnow

03-04-2012 04:24 PM

Big Dogs Summer Slam - August 12th-13th, 2011

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The next event was in August at Big Dogs Off-Road at the Cove Campground in Gore VA. I had a booth right next to John Hunt the owner of Big Dogs at the registration booth. John was so accommodating to us and helped anywhere he could. We raised over $600 in t-shirt sales. We had an insane amount of interest and it was such a good feeling to see the rigs driving around with our 4W2H stickers on them.

boarderofsnow

03-04-2012 04:27 PM

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The grey T-Shirts really seemed to go quickly at both events and people were not crazy about the yellow. In the next T-Shirt order we went with Red and Gray.

americancliche

03-04-2012 04:30 PM

This is awesome. As a jeep enthusiast and a Veteran of the Iraq war I would love to find a way to get involved. I am soon to come home from this tour and would love to support the cause!

boarderofsnow

03-04-2012 04:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by americancliche
(Post 13174237)

This is awesome. As a jeep enthusiast and a Veteran of the Iraq war I would love to find a way to get involved. I am soon to come home from this tour and would love to support the cause!

Thank you for the support and for your service! I sent you a PM with my contact information. Look forward to hearing back from you. Help spread the word for 4 Wheel to Heal!

boarderofsnow

03-04-2012 04:57 PM

Big Dogs Main Jambo - September 9th-11th 2011

Big Dogs Offroad event Main Jambo where we raised $1300 in T-Shirt and Sticker sales! This event happened during the 10 Year Anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center. It was surreal! The DJ played some amazing tributes to the Armed Forces and the moment of silence brought tears to my eyes.

After this event we made a $250 donation to Op Ward 57!

We had some pictures taken but I do not have access to them at this time. Will post later!

boarderofsnow

03-04-2012 05:14 PM

Official 4W2H Emblem created September 28th, 2011

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When we returned from Big Dogs we wanted to work up an official emblem for 4 Wheel to Heal.

We started with our Superman Emblem of 4W2H. We took the skull and cross bone design from our 4 Wheel Club, Country Boy Crawlers, and incoporated all of the Military Branch emblems. This was the template for our Official Emblem.

boarderofsnow

03-04-2012 05:23 PM

Poison Spyder donation September 28th, 2011

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Poison Spyder made a charitable donation of Gift Certificates and merchandise to 4 Wheel to Heal. Thank you Larry McRae and Poison Spyder for the support!

boarderofsnow

03-04-2012 05:38 PM

Army 10 Miler with Operation Ward 57 October 8th, 2011

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The Army Ten Miller was a booth event for Operation Ward 57. No T shirts were sold and very minimum donations were made. There were over 40,000 people attending this event so atleast we recieved the exposure! Nathan Ramos and his girlfriend Kelly worked for 5 hours Saturday before the Sunday run. Great event!

GrayYJ

03-04-2012 05:42 PM

Anything I can do to help spread the word in Arkansas?

boarderofsnow

03-04-2012 06:02 PM

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Nathan met Scott Mallory from Truckin 4 Troops and began a relationship that can strongly benefit our organization. Care packages were sent from donations gathered from this event to Troops in Afghanistan. Truckin 4 Troops donated 60 T-Shirts for the care packages! Scott Mallory will more than likely be joining us to a couple of our events going forward. Since then he has opened several invitations for us to join him at the bonfires he hosts.